Mass Effect: Parabellum
by Griffin March
Summary: Part character drama, part action/ adventure story. More than 100 years after the defeat of the Reapers, tensions remain high and reconstruction continues. In an era of tenuous alliances and ancient animosities, political or tactical advantage can arise from anything new. Salarian info broker Mosh Andrin has found something very old...
1. Chapter 1: Drifting

**CHAPTER ONE: DRIFTING**

_2312. 126 years after the Reaper War._

_18 light-years from the Eagle Nebula._

_In the wrong direction._

Silver tendrils of interstellar gas reached out like fingers tracing across the port side viewscreens. Half an hour and 100,000 km ago, they had seemed like the branches of a distant, wintry tree; now, they nearly tapped on the windows. Dead ahead, the screens had gone opaque with polarization to block out the intense glare of radiation streaming out from the galactic center.

A tiny, insect-shaped scout ship, bristling with instruments and stabilizers jutting out in every direction, tumbled forward like a moth to a blowtorch. In the pilot seat, Olor Cathax Hora Shanerat Andrin Mosh, a young salarian, was nervous. He watched the aft scanners, and cursed.

His long, thin fingers, in white gloves with bronze-colored stripes of plating to match his hardsuit, poked at the glowing orange control panel. Outside, maneuvering jets spit and sputtered a staccato rhythm. Little vortices swirled out from a row of spaces between two of the ship's curved leg struts, causing the ship to turn lazily as it sped on toward the deadly center of the Milky Way.

"Norus," he was saying, "you will probably never hear this message, but it pleases me greatly that if you ever do, you'll finally give me the chance to tell you..." Mosh poked at the control for the maneuvering thruster again, tapping an angry, semi-random rhythm... "You are a lazy, stupid, ignorant cloaca."

The little ship continued to cut through the clouds of interstellar dust, which roiled and spun in its wake, then filled in behind it such that the trail erased itself after a few seconds. And the ship continued its slide through the haze.

"I also want you to know that I'm well aware this 'honor' you have bestowed on me is why I'm very possibly about to be slaughtered by a ship full of Pillars of Wrath fanatics. Shadow Broker or no, I know you would never have done this job yourself. Did I say cowardly before? You're a coward too, Norus." Mosh fiddled with the controls, then sighed, and took away his hand. He had made all the adjustments he could.

"I'm intentionally heading directly toward the galactic center; I am... oh, shit, only about 4 kiloparsecs from it, so in case their shields are as good as mine, and they catch up to me before my eyeballs boil and my skin melts off, let me just say: _fuck you_. And in the event they burn up first, but I still can't turn around in time: _fuck you. Twice_."

Mosh fitted his smooth helmet over the collar of his hardsuit and activated the seals. The extra plating and Foucault currents running through the hull of his small ship were a few orders of magnitude more powerful than the shielding of anything that wasn't military, and most of what was, but he was nervous nonetheless. Not that a hardsuit would be of much additional protection. "Leave a good-looking corpse," went the human expression. _Humans are weird_, he mused, not for the first time.

His pursuers might have turned back as much as 20 minutes ago; they might be lying in wait, at a presumably-safe distance; they might have been vaporized by now. The only way to know for sure at this point was to turn back, and he was in no hurry to do that. On the other hand... deadly radiation, enough to first turn him into a strip of jerky, and then atomize him entirely.

"Oh, and by the way," he continued, "if I do survive this, we seriously need to figure out just what-"

Mosh's ship was slowing. Stopping. Forward engines were at full-reverse.

"What the hell?," he said out loud. This was _not_ the plan. The plan was for no engines. No emissions. Although, really, in this kind of radiation density, the odds of bloodthirsty batarian death cultists having scanners able to pick him out were not great. Didn't matter, though: mitigate every risk that can be mitigated.

So what was happening? The only thing that could possibly trigger an all-stop despite the programming Mosh had done when he set his course to play chicken with the galaxy's radiation horizon would be a proximity alert, or the collision detection subroutines.

"What. The. Hell?"

And the ship stopped, turning just enough to starboard that Mosh could see out through the port side forward quarter. The tendrils of mist parted. And there, hanging in space less than 10 km away, and utterly dominating the field of view, was a huge metal structure. It looked like a giant, elegant, curved key, with two parallel arms parting gracefully on one end, curving away around a series of concentric rings the size of small cities, then coming together again to stretch out another 10 km or so.

"Stop recording." There was a beep.

A mass relay.

An _unknown_ mass relay.

A dormant, inactive, dead, forgotten, _completely_ unknown mass relay.

Mosh forgot for a moment about the batarians, the radiation, his own impending death. He smiled. No new mass relays had been mapped in over 100 years.

He had no idea how, he had no particular plan in mind, but he knew one thing:

"I am going to be _rich_."

Mosh wanted to take off his helmet, to get out of the ship, to pace back and forth, to think. He wanted to walk on the surface of the relay, paint his name on a corner of it, maybe.

Wait. One thing at a time.

"Delete recording." There was another beep. "New recording." And another.

"Gorul, this is your cousin Andrin Mosh. We haven't met; you were born shortly before I left Olor. And if you're getting this message, then that means I'm dead. So... sorry we never met, I guess. At the time of this recording, you're a kid in school, and in another 10 years or so, you'll be a productive member of society, maybe working in your father's district, maybe something with the colonies. Or, maybe, you'll be... like me. A little less, how do I say it, maybe you'll be feeling like you're not such a good salarian."

He shifted in his seat. The slow rolling of his ship positioned the hollow, open circle of the relay's giant, perfect rings directly in front of him. He stared through the gap into the endless, dead depths of space.

"Maybe you'll take after my great-great-great grandfather, the one you were named after, the one whose story I've always liked. Anyway, Gorul, whichever way you go, you should know that even though I don't know you, I've always been fond of you. I don't know how much you might be like our forebear, the Gorul who flew on that human ship, but it doesn't matter. This way, if nobody has ever told you his story, you have a reason to seek it out. And you also have this: I'm including position data on something that I want someone - that I want _you_ - to have the chance to turn into a huge profit."

He had now rolled enough that he couldn't see the relay, but he could feel the sheer mass of the thing, almost as if deep in his thin sunken chest, he could feel the pull of its gravity well.

"There's a relay here, Gorul. It's inactive. It doesn't show up on sensors, of course. What I'm looking at right now, no one else could have seen for at least 50,000 years, that's unquestionable. It doesn't appear on any current maps, nor any from before the Reaper War. Likely, the Protheans didn't know about it either, which means 100,000 years, or more... Nobody should be this close to the galactic center, so maybe the relay got knocked out of place? Whatever. Point is, new relays still aren't happening, and finding one is about the biggest-"

The recording paused automatically with a ping from the aft sensors, and the readout blipped a few lines of data. The ship that had been pursuing him was now three large and 31 small pieces of debris, fanning out along the previous trajectory. Mosh blinked.

The relay rolled back into view again. Mosh fired the maneuvering jets, to hold his ship steady and keep the relay in the middle of his viewport.

"Delete recording."

He triple-checked his measurements and readings, encrypted the information right there and then, and turned his ship around.


	2. Chapter 2: Grifting

**INTERLUDE**

_A man awakens, in a room._

(None of the above is true.)

He is not a man. He had been one; he died. He feels sure of that. What he is now, he is not sure of. He now remembers, in the first moments awake again, that he had died once before, and was brought back, and while it is not unreasonable that it may have happened again, it does not seem likely.

And whether he is waking up, or if something entirely different is happening, is not clear. But he is definitely not merely waking up, as if from sleeping. He may be dreaming now, he thinks, and that feels true to him.

He is also not in a room.

Who he is, and what he is doing, and where he is, are not important. Not yet. Not now.

At one point in time, he was perhaps the most important individual in the galaxy. He can't yet quite remember why...

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER TWO: GRIFTING<strong>

_Two Weeks Later_

_Ibo City, Erinle_

It was late afternoon and the bright sun was warming the streets and buildings of the market district. A warm breeze drifted in off the desert, a few thin clouds lay like webs across the blue-green sky, and Olor Cathax Hora Shanerat Andrin Mosh was seriously fucking _annoyed_.

The dusky blue of his lower eyelids slid halfway up his great black eyes and the small slits that in his species served as a nose wrinkled in disgust as he made his way down the crowded main street of the district. People of all five Council races, as well as several other species, jostled and crowded and had easy after-work conversations in small clusters as they walked. Mosh was alone... at least in the sense that his unwanted companion on the walk to the pub was about 20 meters behind him. _This guy is terrible_, he thought.

And it was true: Mosh had spotted him several blocks back, trundling along exactly like someone _trying_ to look inconspicuous. Even someone who wasn't salarian, or an information broker, or arguably more paranoid than circumstances required, would have noticed the young male human in the scratched and dented forest-green combat armor, trailing behind and matching all of Mosh's starts, stops, and changes in direction. Mosh stopped at an information kiosk, pretending to read the illuminated, scrolling display about weather and the stock market, but actually focusing on the mirror-like black obelisk itself.

_Oh for the love of..._ thought Mosh. _He's "casually" browsing the __**dextro**__ food shop. This is pathetic._ He dodged back into the flow of the crowd and quickened his pace. He went a few steps, then gently nudged the nearest of a slow-moving cluster of turian merchants who were arguing about tarriffs; the tall, spiky alien grunted something too quick for Mosh's translator to catch, something somewhere between an apology and a threat, judging by the sub-harmonics of it, and moved half a step sideways as Mosh slid past him.

Mosh stepped out into a gap between clusters of people, finally able to see down the block toward the row of shops and pubs where he was headed. Off to his left, the sun was lazily making its way toward the horizon; it had been "setting" for almost 20 minutes, as though wrapping up the planet's 32-hour day with the same lack of urgency most of the crowd had recently been applying to their workdays. Things tended to start late on Erinle, and proceed in an unhurried manner, yet everything important got done. Right now, it felt like half the city was on its way to eat, shop, and/or unwind.

Mosh was on his way to work.

He was moving through a river of people, of various races and species, flowing gently from the factory and industrial blocks through the park and plaza area to the residences and entertainment blocks about a kilometer away. He might have taken one of the narrower streets just a short distance to either side and not had to deal with so much foot traffic and confusion, but when he was on the way to a meet, he liked to use the environment to his advantage. He had been in the city for almost three years now, forever to a salarian, and knew how to capitalize on more than a few of its quirks.

The clandestine prodigy on Mosh's tail was turning a little pink in the face, jogging along encumbered by armor, replete with helmet. The dark green made a nice contrast, Mosh observed in the reflection in a shop window. A quick glance up toward the clock tower at City Hall a few blocks to the right, taking in a wide sweep of the crowd, confirmed there was also a turian wearing armor in a similar color, hanging farther back, and moving in a more natural manner. _Well, that's something, at least_, thought Mosh. _Puffy has a mentor or a boss, so he may have a future_.

The walk to the Thirsty Prothean was uneventful. As Mosh passed through the door, he felt a blast of cool recycled air on his face, and ruffling his loose jacket - and the faint, quick series of vibrations on the top of his left wrist that alerted him that the scrambler in his Omni had jammed the door's built-in weapons scanner. He allowed himself to smirk a little.

As his eyes adjusted to the light, he stepped through the entry vestibule and around the corner to the bar proper.

"MOSH!" yelled several voices, both salarian and human.

Immediately to his right, Mosh saw a small cadre of rough-appearing human, turian, and salarian males, all wearing stained yellow coveralls. Their breather helmets lay in a haphazard pile on the low shelf behind their booth, a couple of them giving the impression of children or dwarfs of both species peeking up over the top. The thought was amusing, and Mosh smiled wide. He saw the lights glinting in a few drops of beer that were sloshing over the edges of mugs held high in greeting.

"OH CRAP! IS IT PAYDAY ALREADY?!" yelled Mosh, his high reedy voice cutting through the music pumping over the loudspeakers.

It came out as a little bit of a squeak at the end, but that was appropriate for the character he used with this crew. They were from the mining base about 10 km to the north, they got the chance to come to town about once a week, and they liked Mosh. They liked Mosh because he gave them reasons to: he was an offworlder like them (which was one part of this persona that was true), he liked to drink almost as much as they did (that also was true), and he _somehow_ often wound up saying or doing something to give them something to laugh at. They really liked to laugh. He was playing the "harmless skinny frog" role fairly hard with this group, and it had worked uncommonly well. He was especially proud of the way the biggest human, a supervisor named Burke, had come around from vaguely xenophobic to big-brotherly in the space of a few weeks. He was going to miss them when they rotated out next month.

Mosh joined Burke and his crew of miners at their table. Cels, a young salarian, slid over in the booth so Mosh could sit. Mosh clapped him on the shoulder as someone poured a glass of beer from one of the pitchers in the middle of the table.

"Thanks, Cels," said Mosh. "Burke. Fellas." He nodded in greeting, a little too enthusiastically. He draped his jacket over the back of the booth.

"How's life, Moshie?" asked Burke, his shaved head glistening in the low light of the bar. "That boss of yours still busting your balls?"

"Ugh," said Mosh, swallowing a mouthful of beer. "Don't even ask." He knew that would work, and sure enough, Burke asked.

"Aww, come on, man," said the burly human, "how bad can he be? And hey - you can always come work with us diggin' up palladium, if your air-conditioned office gets too much for ya." The crew laughed at that, and Cels chucked Mosh on his shoulder, in return for earlier. Mosh's story with the group was that he was a mid-level administrator in the city's water utility. The plan had been to present the image of someone with a job so boring his contacts would want to talk about theirs instead, but surprisingly this group had glommed on to his tales of utterly banal workplace drama.

"Yeah, yeah," said Mosh, smirking. "Working conditions aside, I happen to know _your_ boss isn't a cowardly cloaca." This last was addressed to everyone but the foreman, and Mosh swept his eyes across the crew as he said it, ending up on Burke, who squared his shoulders and seemed pleased with the compliment.

"No," said Mosh, "he's the _worst_." He had come to appreciate that the miners enjoyed hearing about how terrible an office job could be; it helped reinforce the normalcy of the harsh conditions they had to deal with. People tended to believe just about anything, so long as you gave them a reason to prefer believing you and your story to rejecting it. "He's always over my shoulder. He complains when I do things any way but his, but when my way works better, which is pretty often, he takes credit for my accomplishments."

Burke nodded, solemnly. "I've said it before, Mosh: he sounds like a wanker. You should let us rough him up for you."

Mosh pretended to be scandalized by this. "N-no!," he sputtered, "you can't do that." Cels shrugged and a thin, wiry human to Burke's right laughed. "Besides," he leaned in and shot glances to both sides before croaking out, "the platinum call came in, and you were right. He lost a couple hundred credits, and I made 650! That'll teach him."

Burke and the miners exploded in laughter.

Mosh had actually made more like 65,000 credits in the past couple of weeks, trading on information gleaned from this group about upcoming supply and demand changes, convoy movements, and mine production. From the miners' point of view, they were just having fun. Mosh had paid for beer a little more than half the time; he figured he had made over 4000 per pitcher. He bought two more.

Half an hour later, the time of his meeting was approaching. Another little series of buzzes to the left wrist signaled Mosh; a proximity alert. Mosh saw the turian in the forest green armor come into the bar and sit down where he had a good view of the whole room. _Back to work_, he thought.

"Well, guys..." he began, "I figure it's time I should-"

"Us too," said Burke, shooting glances from under his bushy eyebrows to his men around the table. "Want to get back to camp before it gets late. Big plans tonight." With an odd degree of focus and speed, they kicked back chairs, gathered up helmets and gloves, and made to leave. Cels slapped Mosh on the back. "See you around, Moshie," he said, adopting the irritating human habit of nicknaming. Mosh figured he must be doing it on purpose.

"Sure," said Mosh, only just pushing away from the table. "You guys take care." He stood up, nodded to Burke, fetched his jacket, and by the time he turned around, the last miner was going around the corner into the entrance vestibule.

Weird. He'd have to do some checking later on, after he got back to his office. See if these guys had some kind of side action running. Meanwhile, the client was just about due, and...

_Oh, that is just perfect_, thought Mosh. In the opposite corner from the turian, who by now was leaning on an elbow and nursing a beer, still watching the room but being professional and discreet about it, a lone salarian had sat in the agreed-upon reserved booth. Mosh was meeting a mysterious but well-paying new client, someone who wanted a vulnerability study on Norus' organization. An interesting development.

Aaaaaand, it turned out to be Norus himself.

Fucksticks.

_Okay_, Mosh thought, _so the turian has me well in his sights. The human is probably outside. Any number of others, maybe. Norus hasn't seen me yet, but if the turian is... ah_. Mosh cracked his neck side to side, and strode off toward the corner. _I guess this was going to happen sooner or later_.

He went into the restroom; no exits there... but he already knew that. If you need an exit in _that_ way, you shouldn't have gone into the building in the first place, right? Still, he'd had a couple of beers, and salarian metabolism isn't _that_ efficient. Can't sabotage your own career and be distracted by a full bladder at the same time. He selected a stall already configured for salarians, and gave himself a minute to think and plan.

After a satisfyingly robust whiz, he took his time washing his hands, half-hoping the turian was going to come check on him, half knowing he wouldn't. Striding out, he made his way over...

...directly to the turian. Just the slightest twitch of jagged mandibles betrayed any surprise when Mosh grinned and said "hi." There was a slight pause - Mosh could tell it was less a "waiting for orders" pause and more a "reforming strategy" pause, so that fit the emerging profile of competence and experience - and then the turian rumbled "whaddya want?" It wasn't openly hostile, at least.

"Yeah, wow, you are properly intimidating, aren't you?" smiled Mosh. "And not nearly as stupid as the local talent. Can't have been cheap." He kept smiling, and watched the turian. Nothing in response.

Mosh sat down two barstools away. The turian turned in his seat, just a little, just enough to stay agile and quick. Quicker than Mosh, it was becoming apparent.

"Okay, look," said Mosh, in a low voice. "I'm pretty sure I already know who you're working for, but I enjoy surprises, so it's still worth me asking: what would you do if I tried to break the neck of that little bastard in the corner booth?" He nodded his cranial horns in the direction of Norus, who was sitting in the booth, staring open-mouthed at the two of them.

The turian chuckled, exhaling once, making a sound like a bag of gravel falling onto a hard floor. He lifted his beer mug and said, "I haven't been paid yet, so I would stop you. After that?"

He shrugged, and finished his beer.

Mosh nodded. "Okay. Good to know." He tapped his Omni and nodded at the bartender, ordering another drink for the mercenary. "Have another one, on me. And instead of glowering and being ominous from way over here, why don't you come and take the booth next to us? I have to go be scared of my criminal-mastermind boss, I guess."

Mosh got up, smiled again, and walked off toward Norus. From the opposite corner of the room, Norus could see the turian shaking his head, taking the fresh beer mug, and then following at a discreet distance.

By the time he gently sidled past standing bar patrons and made his way to Norus' table, Mosh was seeing Norus' poker face. It wasn't a pleasant face, but neither was it half as scary as Norus imagined it to be.

When he arrived on Erinle three years ago, Mosh had fallen in with Norus' organization for a few reasons. One, he was salarian; never underestimate simple tribal identity when you're in a new place and looking to get into something illegal. Two, Mosh liked the city, and Norus seemed to be the biggest of several small fish in this small pond; and three, Mosh really didn't feel like running an organization. That might be changing lately, but Mosh had for the most part been happy to run smaller jobs for Norus, while working on his own projects. It had been a good arrangement for both parties, although to be fair Norus had never really been informed of it. Mosh hadn't seen a good reason to take the risk.

Well, until now, of course. Looking at Norus' poker face, Mosh took off his jacket, slowly, for the benefit of the turian bodyguard. He reached into a pocket, drawing out a data chip. He placed it on the table in front of himself, and the jacket on the seat next to him. Mosh folded his long, thin hands on the table.

"We agreed on 20 thousand. Pay me, and I'll decrypt this for you."

The poker face vanished.

Norus narrowed his eyes and looked at Mosh, hard. "_Pay_ you? For stabbing me in the back? For doing oppo research on your own organization?"

"Oh, come on, Norus, don't be like that. I knew it was you." Mosh spread his hands out, and tilted his head in a friendly gesture. "Besides, it's good leadership for you to want to have this done. I'm really impressed. It's a good investment for you."

Norus continued to stare.

"You did _not_ know it was me. I took steps to mask my identity!"

Mosh rolled his huge eyes. "Oh, like you _took steps_ to have me followed all afternoon?"

Norus was unperturbed. "But these are brand-new guys. You couldn't possibly know them from my crew."

Mosh glanced over his shoulder, and nodded at the green-armored turian, who was settling into the booth behind him. "Sure, but I also couldn't possibly miss them, trundling around like krogan children playing tag. No offense." This last was to the turian, who shrugged, and sipped his beer. As Norus glared at the turian, Mosh continued.

"So, either there's a brand-new faction in town, all of a sudden, and for some reason they care about _me_, or one of the existing ones is sending out feelers. Either way, I'd say you would want to know what's up with that, so why shouldn't I investigate?" Mosh settled back in his seat. "I was going to tell you all about it, after whatever this meeting turned out to be. Boss."

Norus smirked, reaching for the data chip and licking his thin lips.

"Hey," said Mosh, covering the chip. "That's not yours until you pay for it. 20 thousand, remember? I'm still a contractor. Okay, 15 thousand."

Norus paused, mouth open, for a fraction of a second, then went back on the attack. "Don't sell me that line of crap, Mosh. I know you've been itching to run something without me for months. And I knew I'd catch you in the act, too. Admit it. You're burned. You're done on this planet." He leaned in closer, holding his hand up, palm open, over the table. "You've lost the respect of the one person who might have helped you become a real info broker, eventually. And all because you didn't respect _me_. Now: give me the chip."

Mosh just stared back, blankly. After a beat, he sighed, and dropped the chip into Norus' hand. He looked down, and his shoulders started to shake slightly. Norus could hear very soft exhalations, a quick succession of breaths...

Mosh straightened up. He was laughing out loud. "Sorry," he said, composing himself, "that was rude. It's just... Ohhh, Norus, you have this idea that-" he snickered, and cleared his throat. "...that _I care what you think_." And now, Mosh was looking at Norus with contempt and pity.

The look on Norus' face was pure rage. He was starting to turn pink across the forehead.

Mosh flicked his left wrist, activating his Omni. He pressed a couple of keys in succession, even as the hard-light display popped up, then he collapsed it again. Over Mosh's shoulder, Norus could see the turian look down at his own left wrist.

"Sorry again," said Mosh. "Had to send a quick message." He sipped his beer. "It's true, Norus. You're right. I don't respect you. Now: do you want to know why?"

"Listen to me, you little-"

Mosh cut him off, as though Norus hadn't even spoken. "It's because - and stay with me here, this gets a little complex - _you're not worthy of respect_."

Norus' mouth worked open and closed, just slightly, and the pink across his forehead now reached to his cheeks, but he didn't say anything. Behind Mosh, the turian's green eyes reflected the orange of his Omni's screen.

"When I landed on this... charming little rock... I wondered if I could really make my way in the trade. No contacts to speak of, no idea of the environment for targets, the competition... and then, I met you. The biggest, baddest broker on this half of the planet. That's when I knew, Norus: I was going to be just fine."

Norus looked past Mosh, to the turian. "Exactly right. I gave this little shit a chance, is the thing. I offered him some opportunities, after a while I even let him work with me on a couple of Shadow Broker jobs. I made him what he is, and now you see what I'm dealing with? This is why we need to-"

Mosh leaned forward suddenly, talking in a low, quiet rush. The turian didn't intervene, in fact didn't move more than his head. "No, Norus, you idiot. I was fine because if _you_ were the best this place had, I had nothing to worry about. You have only a little talent, and a lot less imagination. It hasn't been hard for me to work with you, because _I never have_, Norus. I've worked _around_ you. In _spite of_ you. It's not that I'm surprised you took this long to catch on; I'm honestly a little surprised you thought to look at all. Maybe I did underestimate you, just a little. Maybe I got arrogant. So, thank you, Norus... maybe I finally learned something from you."

Mosh sat back down, and gripped his beer mug again. "I quit, just in case that isn't obvious yet." He turned his head slightly toward the turian, without taking his eyes off Norus. "So - what do you think?"

The turian looked up from his Omni display, said "hmm," and lifted his beer as well. He took a sip.

"Hey," said Norus, "no. No, no, no. You don't talk to my employees, you ungrateful little fuck. You want me to forget about this posturing adolescent outburst and take you back, you need to shut up right now."

Salarians don't have eyebrows; Mosh didn't need them to express his disdain. "Your employees - that's _all_ your employees - now have free copies of opposition research worth 20 thousand credits. Let them decide if they want to remain employees, once they've seen how you really run things."

Norus stood on his side of the booth and hissed at the turian, "You're getting paid here!"

"Yep," said the turian. "As per the agreement, and for the duration of this meeting. Sounds like it's winding down."

Mosh nodded.

"Don't worry," continued the turian, "you'll get back to your office safe and sound. I don't think this one means to kill you, anyway."

Mosh shrugged, grimaced a little, then shook his head.

The turian chuckled again, the gravelly sound louder this time. "I thought your people didn't live long enough to be into big speeches."

"Yeah, I'd been saving that one up for a while," Mosh said. "Took me by surprise, to tell the truth. So, Norus, your plan to expose me as... I dunno, what, a guy who does the work he's hired to do?..."

"Behind his boss' back?" spat Norus.

"...has succeeded spectacularly, and as a result you've lost your best agent, and maybe some or even most of your mercs, depending on how things go. Are we done here?"

Mosh drained his beer, picked up his jacket, slid back out of the booth. Norus wasn't saying anything.

"I don't want to be rude," said Mosh, putting on his jacket, "but I actually have another meeting later, and I don't want to keep the Shadow Broker waiting."

He strode out, feeling like a man about to meet his destiny. Norus looked at the turian mercenary, and blinked his eyes dumbly. The mercenary coughed, politely.

"Follow him," said Norus. "See to it that he doesn't get-"

"You sure you don't need me to escort you back, sir?" said the turian. If Norus had any knowledge of turian subharmonics, the question would have sounded surprised, and not just a rough growl.

"Take the human and go; I'll collect the others on my way." When the turian didn't move right away, Norus added, "This is my town, no one will mess with me."

What the turian was thinking was _Okay, pal, your funeral_, but what he said was "Sir." He went out the front door, not long after Mosh.

Mosh breathed deeply of the twilight air outside the pub. He turned east and started the route back to his apartment/ base of operations/ secret lair. Past the kitchen entrance of the pub, down the alley between the first of the warehouses and the last of the shops. Across the street, then left again. He would be home in less than fifteen minutes.

...Or would have been, if not for being jumped by eight or ten guys.


	3. Chapter 3: Shadows

**CHAPTER THREE: SHADOWS**

Mosh had made an effort to become good with a knife. Knives are low-tech. Omnis and mass-effect-driven ballistic weapons are great, but the danger with any technology is that when you need it most, there is a specific set of conditions under which it could simply fail to work. A smart opponent will at least try to encourage those conditions. The only way a knife can suddenly stop being useful as a knife is if it breaks, or if the other guy takes it away from you.

He had walked just a block or so from the pub, taking his usual serpentine route, rounding a succession of corners. As soon as he turned down the next alley and found himself surrounded by humans, turians, and salarians all wearing yellow environment suits - in other words, in the middle of an ambush - Mosh reached into his jacket for his knife. It was gone.

The yellow coveralls and breather masks on the half of the crowd moving in from the front looked uncomfortably familiar.

_Oh, there it is_, thought Mosh, seeing his knife in the hand of a salarian he knew must be Cels.

"Guys?" he said, backing up a step. The way he had come was already blocked as the group closed in behind him, but he could at least get his left side nearer the alley wall.

"Nothing personal, Moshie," grumbled the tall, thick human that had to be Burke. His voice was muffled by his helmet, but he did sound a little regretful. "It's business, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," said Mosh. "Out of curiosity, how much is Norus paying you? I might be able to-"

"Forget it," said Cels. "We're not being paid by Norus. He really _is_ a cloaca. At least you didn't lie about that."

Mosh blinked. Cels sounded hurt. Disappointed. This kid was spending too much time with humans.

"Enough!" grumbled Burke. "We're not here to chat, for crapsakes. Guys, let's get on with it." His left forearm was glowing, surrounded by the deep red glow of what Mosh assumed must be an industrial Omni.

Mosh planted his right foot in the dust, lifted his left, and sprang sideways, bracing against and then bouncing off the wall to gain some height before coming down a meter away at an angle, against the leg of a yellow-clad turian.

The turian shin bone, with its characteristic protruding spur, was probably functional in prehistoric proto-turians as some kind of support for a skin flap, of the sort seen in other creatures from Palaven and used for mating displays or shows of aggression. Theories about flying cave-turians are almost certainly fanciful (regardless of how cool it would have been). Whatever the reason, there is a bony structure commonly called the _spur_ jutting out from the back of the turian lower leg, and it hurts like hell if someone puts their body weight behind kicking it, even if that someone is a scrawny 50-kilo salarian. Turian armor protects the spurs exceptionally well; mining coveralls do not.

Mosh couldn't be sure whether he truly felt a crack as his boot came down across the turian's leg, but the miner gave out a short grunt of pain and crumpled to the dust with satisfying speed, creating a gap in the tightening mass of opponents. Mosh dove through the gap and ran, just as an arc of electricity hit the wall where he had been a moment before.

He knew the twists and turns of the alleys well enough to navigate them in pitch darkness and/or drunk; the problem was not one of being able to find the best or quickest route, even under stress. The heavy-soled boots of the mining crew thundered close behind him; Mosh set in to a brisk pace, and hoped he could keep it up. What he had to do was to create opportunities to shake his pursuers. The risk was in either leading them to his base of operations, or tiring enough to make a mistake before he reached it. There was no guarantee they didn't know about it already, but then again if they had, they should have waited for him there.

Thinking as he ran, Mosh decided that a gentle arc from North to East would be best, as it included passing by the rear entrances of a few shops he knew had lax security, as well as some storage lots and at least one warehouse with an easily unlocked entrance. Maybe he would be able to cut through one during the brief gaps created in the miners' line-of-sight. He turned right, then left, then right again, hearing Burke shouting orders to his men.

They were keeping up well. Made sense, Mosh figured. They were used to working hard; they had decent cardiovascular tone. Oh, and they had breather masks. Mosh cursed when he thought of that. Never mind concealing identities; they obviously hadn't cared much about that. With their breathers on, the crew would tire out long after he did. Okay then, losing them was definitely the priority.

The first door he tried, the back way into the kabob place, was locked, but he was able to ascertain as much without slowing down more than a few seconds, and the yellow-clad miners who rounded the corner after him hadn't seen him doing it. He repeated the process a handful of times, whenever he heard his pursuers falling back enough that he could risk it. He concentrated on gaining ground when they were catching up again. He was starting to tire when he crossed a quiet street, made another left-right-left zig-zag, and Mosh was at the alley entrance to a travel agency. The indicator on this door blinked from orange to green as he ran up to it, transmitting a hack from his Omni. He slipped inside, managing to close the door quickly.

He found himself in a back hallway, between offices. A door leading to the front section of the business was ahead. It had low walls on either side, with planters at chest level and open space above each of those. The lights were off and the place was empty. He crouched down low, more a reflex than because of any chance of actually being seen, and steadied his breathing. The thundering footsteps passed by outside, then faded down the alley.

His base was just two and a half blocks east from here, and the space between was mostly closed businesses, with a warehouse taking up the center portion of the most direct route. Mosh counted to a hundred, hoping he could split the difference between starting out too soon, and the miners turning back when they realized he had shaken them. He climbed over the row of leafy plants atop one of the partitions rather than take the time to see whether the interior door was locked, and concentrated instead on crossing the office to the front door. He used a hack from his Omni to set it to open and then re-lock ten seconds later. He listened at the door, ready to hit the button.

He waited for a group of footsteps to pass by, an annoying delay once he heard voices and realized it was a clutch of teenagers looking for surfaces to tag with graffiti. After waiting as long as he could bear, he triggered the shop's door chime, then listened as the teens sprinted away up the street.

He activated his hack and then stepped out onto sidewalk, seeing the streetlights on and a few pedestrians out on the adjoining streets, but no one in yellow, and no one looking his way. Crossing the road was tense, but when he got into the shadows again Mosh let out the breath he realized he'd been holding. Just inside the next door was a mostly-empty warehouse, an excellent way to approach his base without being observed, and one he'd taken many times before. He even had a small subroutine programmed into his Omni to facilitate coming in through this specific door; it acted like a stealthier version of what someone with actual permission would encounter. He simply had to walk right up to the door, and it opened.

Once inside, Mosh knew the way without the lights. He monitored the place well enough to know when it was full of pallets or boxes, and when it would be stocked with anything interesting or dangerous. He avoided it a couple of times a year, when one of Erinle's few remaining arable crops, a stinky fruit that seemed to be a delicacy somewhere, was in season. Today, it should be nothing more dangerous than disassembled drive core parts, and maybe some of that palladium that had paid for the most recent pitcher of beer.

Mosh was partway across the warehouse floor when a shadow moved across the frame of light created by the far windows, 50 meters ahead.

"Oh, _spirits_, you fuckin' kid," said a gravelly voice from deep into the warehouse and to Mosh's left. Mosh froze, then doubled back a few steps as silently as he could, before flattening himself against a crate.

"What?"

It came from a young voice, a whiny voice, a human voice. Without much effort, Mosh could imagine the screwed-up expression on his fat little face, framed by his dark green helmet.

The turian exhaled, slowly. Mosh could hear him about 20 meters away, ahead and left, near the North wall. The human's armor creaked as he walked, moving from right to left across Mosh's imagined view of the scene. _Crates here, office enclosure there, lifter area, railing..._ Mosh had the whole thing mapped out. Beams and catwalks 10 meters above, concrete floor, various zones marked with stripes of yellow paint. If they had visors with infrared, the mercenaries didn't need to imagine. The turian spoke again. He hadn't moved.

"Kid? Russ, is it?"

"Sir?" he had moved to the left past Mosh now, and the way ahead was clear to the right.

"You know why what you just did was stupid?"

"Uhhh..."

Mosh moved around his crate to the next row over, farther from the turian as the human kept going toward him at the North wall.

"Did you hear the target come in, Russ?"

"No sir, but I did see the door open and then close, so I-"

"Hold on, there, Russ. Take a breath, and think. I know what you did next. What I want to know is, do you know why it was stupid?"

Mosh moved east and slipped over the metal railing surrounding the office portion of the warehouse. This area, a rectangle 5 by 20 meters, faced the large doors where goods were brought in to the staging area before being moved to the rear part of the open area. It was about 2/3 of the way to the door, which in turn was across the street from his own front door. He made his way forward, trying to stay low behind the railing and desks.

"Sir, I... uhhh."

"Okay, kid. It's like... this..."

Mosh froze again. The turian had barely paused, but his voice changed for a fraction of a second, just as Mosh had been directly across from him.

"...You saw the door open and close, but you didn't hear the target. That's what you said, right?"

Mosh frowned. Something about this seemed off. He kept sliding carefully along the concrete floor of the warehouse. He could just barely feel the painted stripes of the "no lifters" zone inside the office enclosure, as his boot soles caught more or less friction. This was the exact moment when Mosh was sure this was the same turian he had met, back at the bar, with Norus. There was more to this... and Mosh didn't like it.

"Sir, yes sir, I saw the door. You asked if I heard the target, but while I didn't, I did see the door, so I figured you were asking if I had an awareness the target was inside-"

"Yeah," said the turian. "But can you either see _or_ hear him now?"

"Sir?"

"What I mean is, Russ, do you have _any_ idea whatsoever where the target might be in here, now? You revealed _your_ position, but don't know his. That's what's so stupid."

Mosh was nearly to the end of the office area, and approaching the railing that bordered it. He would have to climb over, or else go farther to his right and go around. Russ the Wonder Merc was making "Uhh" noises. The turian continued.

"Let's just start again, shall we? Get back to your post, and we can start a search. Begin with the crates in Sector Alpha."

And Mosh realized: the turian was leading the human away from his position. He decided to take advantage, and go over the railing. He threw one leg over the top, then kicked with his other foot to balance in a sitting position over the metal pipe. Coming down quietly would mean being slow and careful...

He could hear the human trudging diagonally away from the turian's position near the far wall, heading to where Mosh had been shortly before.

"HE'S HERE!" shouted a new voice, and two sets of footsteps were suddenly heading his way, from just ahead and to the right. Two more mercs had been concealed in the shadows of a recessed area to the side of the outer door. Mosh cursed; that would be the smart plan. Distract him with the turian, make it sound like only he and the human were in here, and wait.

He had no choice but to trade stealth for speed, and he came down on the other side of the railing in a crouch, ready to cut one way or the other depending on which of the mercs tried to grab at him first. He could hear Russ and the turian running in his direction now, from back in the rear of the warehouse, as well as the two coming from ahead.

And then he heard the loud CLANK of the rear door of the warehouse coming open as it was forced, and the THUNK of the breakers engaging, as the lights came on.

He saw the two new mercs; another turian and a salarian, also wearing dark green armor, carrying assault rifles, slowing their run toward him and blinking in the sudden light.

He still hadn't moved. He shifted his weight to chance a look over his shoulder, and saw Burke and the yellow-clad miners pouring in through the far door.

_Wow_, thought Mosh. _Everything is wrong at once. If this can get worse, I'd love to see how_.

He did.

He saw the motion as the inept human mercenary pivoted out of cover from behind a crate to face him, about 20 meters away. He had just started to raise his rifle to his shoulder, when his eyes went wide. Mosh realized Russ was looking past him, just as he heard the sound of _something_ falling from above, quite near him, and the closest mercs grunting in pain. Armor pieces made dull thudding noises against the concrete.

Mosh wanted to turn and look, but in the next fraction of a second, Russ' rifle was knocked wide of his grip as the turian strode into the lane between rows of crates and put a gloved fist across the human's jaw in a perfect right cross.

He looked at Mosh, who turned his body toward the turian and stood slowly.

"That could have gone better," said the turian. He picked up the human's rifle, and glanced back toward the rear of the warehouse.

"Indeed," said a female voice from behind Mosh.

Mosh finally turned back around. He absolutely hated the idea of not knowing what might be there when he did. Also, he was fairly certain he was about to die.

He saw the two green-clad mercenaries on the floor, bleeding dark blue from the nose (the turian) and pale green from the mouth (the salarian). Between them was a slender, tall, human woman. She appeared to be wearing light armor over street clothes, or maybe it really was just the waist-length coat it resembled. She had a pistol at her hip. Her skin was pale and she had dark hair with streaks of grey, gathered in the back but spilling out to frame her face and brush against her cheeks. She cocked her head to one side, but her expression was unreadable.

Mosh realized that she, too, was looking past him. "Mister Andrin," she said, still looking at the miners. It wasn't a question. Then she turned to him. She had dark grey eyes, the color of weathered metal. She raised one corner of her mouth, almost imperceptibly, and as she turned back to the warehouse she said "...run."

Mosh, to his credit, just ran. He was a step outside the front door of the warehouse before he heard the first shot, and almost at the door to his base when he heard the last one.


	4. Chapter 4: Brokers

**CHAPTER FOUR: BROKERS**

Things had clearly fallen apart in spectacular fashion. Mosh had planned to burn his bridge with Norus, but at this point the bridge seemed to be kindling for a much larger fire. As he got to his front door, Mosh was already running down his "escaping the planet" checklist. His little ship was fueled and ready, but it was at the commercial spaceport, closer to the south end of town. He had a car tucked away on the roof, his credit chits in easy reach - the door slid open as he waved his Omni in front of the sensor - a scramble bag under the desk with clothing and essentials. He could probably purge the files and be out within 120 seconds, once he finished tonight's business. All he had to do was keep his appointment, which was supposed to have started five minutes ago...

"Mister Andrin, please do not lock that door."

Mosh had one foot over the threshhold and was standing in the doorway of his dwelling/ office. The human woman and the turian mercenary were crossing the street toward him. She looked calm; he looked bored. The warehouse's front door was sliding shut behind them.

"It would take me as much as several minutes to open it, and you are already late for your meeting with the Shadow Broker."

Mosh froze. No one knew about the meeting. (Well, no one _had_, until he decided it would be a nice parting shot to taunt Norus with.) Mosh looked to the turian, who was less than two meters away now. Close enough to be dangerous; Mosh was standing firm, his curiosity overpowering his dread. "I suppose you told her about that?"

The gravelly sound of the turian's laugh was lighter now than before. "Ah ha, nope, not even close, kid. Oh, and here's your knife."

He held it out, hilt first, toward Mosh. The human woman coughed, politely, and tilted her head toward the doorway. The looser sections of her hair swayed, then fell back as her chin came up again. Mosh sighed, took the knife from the turian, and gestured for them to follow as he went inside.

"Fine. You could have killed me half a dozen times by now, and I'm leaving this planet for good later tonight, so what the hell. Who are you people, anyway?" He went through a small office and kitchen, continuing to a room with couches and a large vid screen. "Any interest in sub-letting a modest living space? And what did you do to poor Cels? I guess I'm glad my knife is here, not in his guts." He leaned against a side table, examining the blade, half-expecting to see actual guts.

The woman sounded... was that _amused_? It was difficult to read her, and Mosh thought of himself as being good at deciphering human cues.

"As a matter of fact, Mister Kyral was very careful with your drinking companions. The young salarian saw only the blunt end of that knife. He did see it rather up-close, and repeatedly, but he is not seriously hurt."

She walked up to Mosh, and the communications console he was leaning against. "As to who we are: as my associate said, he did not need to tell me about your meeting. We have been sent by the Shadow Broker to ensure you made it on time. It would seem we were not completely successful, but I believe the Broker will understand. Should we make the call?"

Mosh stowed his knife inside his jacket, folded his arms, and looked at the human, sizing her up. "Perhaps I should ask you to prove you are who you say you are? Maybe you could call your boss for me?"

She shook her head, gently. Her hair once again brushed her right cheek, then once again fell back into place. "That would not work. If we were frauds, we could simply call an impostor posing as the Broker." One corner of Mosh's mouth curled slightly. "Having been able to ascertain that the meeting was planned, we would, perhaps, even already know the code phrase that had been arranged," she said, faster than Mosh could interject.

The turian had stretched out on one of the couches. "Nonsense phrases are hard to work into the flow of conversation. You should have something about sports or weather. It's old-school for a reason."

Mosh didn't react. "Well, guys, I don't know what to tell you, then. I certainly wouldn't want to waste the Broker's time, but even more than that, I wouldn't want to risk a security breach in our first real conversation, so-"

"**_THAT'S ENOUGH, THANK YOU_**" said a distorted, low voice from the viewscreen. "**_OPERATIVES, IT SEEMS YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT OUR NEW FRIEND._**"

The screen switched on, but the only video was a representation of the data stream. "**_MISTER ANDRIN, I CAN VOUCH FOR MY AGENTS. SENDING CODE FRAGMENTS NOW_**." Mosh glanced at his Omni; the encrypted password sequence was good. "**_THANK YOU FOR YOUR DISCRETION. OPERATIVE EM, WERE YOU AWARE THAT MISTER ANDRIN HAD ACTIVATED THE CHANNEL?_**"

The woman - whose name was apparently Em? Or maybe it was "M" the letter of the human alphabet? - shook her head again, looking toward Mosh. "I was not. I am surprised, pleasantly so, to find that he was able to do so without me... noticing."

The pattern on the screen danced and shifted as the Shadow Broker spoke. "**_OPERATIVE KYRAL, I WAS SURPRISED TO LEARN THERE WERE TWO ADDITIONAL MERCENARIES IN THE WAREHOUSE WHEN YOU ARRIVED WITH NORUS' MAN MISTER WEBER._**"

The turian sat up on the couch; Mosh thought that was amusing, since the Broker presumably could not see them. "Yes, as was I. I think they were either avoiding work, or discussing how to defect from or renegotiate with Norus. I doubt they were anticipating us."

"**_I AGREE. YOU HADN'T GIVEN THEM ORDERS AS WELL?_**"

"The human had come in with me, and I was just about to find a reason to 'notice' them. Serratus Rinne doesn't have a visor up to my specs, you see. Bastards were being very quiet."

"**_SERRATUS' CAREER PROSPECTS MAY HAVE SUFFERED TONIGHT, I'M AFRAID._**"

"Yeah, he won't be reporting back to Norus about the other players. The reputation will take a hit when I disappear in the confusion, which is a shame, but I was getting tired of being Serratus anyway."

Mosh stood and took over the middle of the room, looking from the screen to Em and the turian. "Thanks for the glimpse behind the scenes, Broker, but it's you I want to be dealing with, not your crew. I'd almost think you were trying to get me off-balance with all this friendly banter, and then spring the topic of my discovery when it suits you."

The silence was only a few seconds long, but Mosh had enough time to be nervous. Then, the pattern on the screen danced and flickered for a short moment; Mosh was worried the signal was degrading, but when the Broker's distorted voice settled into a long exhalation, he realized what he had been hearing was a brief burst of laughter.

"**_NOT QUITE, MR. ANDRIN. ALTHOUGH YOU HAVE A COMMENDABLE AND VIVID IMAGINATION, AN ASSET IN OUR PROFESSION._**"

Mosh felt sure the flattery was part of the Broker's plan, but that didn't help him to know what the plan might be.

"**_ACTUALLY, IT WAS A DELAYING TACTIC. EM_**?"

The turian, Kyral, was still languidly draped on the sofa. Mosh spun, ready to confront the human woman, but she was standing where she had been. He saw her closing down the warm blue glow of an Omni over her left wrist.

"Fascinating, Broker. I am completely unable to break the encryption on Mr. Andrin's Omni. I take it you used your own combination of algorithms and programs? It also seems as though it has other kinds of software protection. Perhaps sometime you would be willing to share your techniques." She sounded perfectly calm, and genuinely curious. Mosh was thoroughly creeped out by it.

Kyral sighed, and his armor creaked as he lifted his tall frame off the couch. "Well then," he said, "looks like this is a recruitment mission after all. How much time do we have for the pitch?"

The Broker's voice rumbled and faded; Mosh could imagine the person on the other end of the call, the keeper and seller of the galaxy's most hidden and powerful secrets, leaning away from a console then back again. "**_NORUS' FORCES ARE STILL STAGING A FEW BLOCKS AWAY. THE BATARIANS ARE ON THEIR WAY DOWN FROM ORBIT. WE HAVE SOME TIME._**"

"Batarians?," asked Mosh.

Kyral cracked his neck from side to side. "Pillars of Wrath. I think you've met them. They want to kill you."

"Ah. _Those_ batarians." Mosh was hating this even more by the moment. He couldn't get to his scramble bag, the roof, and his ship like this. He couldn't overpower both the turian and the woman, especially considering what the two of them had presumably done to Burke's entire crew in the space of 30 seconds. And now, assuming any of this was true, apparently Norus was getting ready to lay seige to the bulding. Then there was the problem of whichever _other_ local crime boss had hired Burke and his guys, presumably to get a copy of Mosh's report on Norus. Plus, the issue of batarian rage cultists.

"Broker," Kyral said, "you should see this guy's face. He's thinking it through, and I don't think you'll need to make your pitch very hard."

"**_VERY WELL. MR. ANDRIN, YOU HAVE NO DOUBT REALIZED YOUR FORTUNES ARE ABOUT TO CHANGE. MY AGENTS COULD HELP YOU GET BACK TO YOUR SHIP, AND SAFELY OFF-PLANET. HOWEVER, UNLESS YOU GIVE US THE LOCATION DATA FOR YOUR RELAY, WE DON'T THINK YOU WOULD HAVE VERY MUCH BY WAY OF BETTER PROSPECTS._**"

Mosh opened his mouth, about to protest, but closed it again. The Broker was right. He wouldn't want to take his chances selling the information about the relay to anyone _less_ well-connected or equipped. But now, his negotiating advantage was completely gone.

Em stepped forward and looked into Mosh's eyes. "I am glad you brought the information to the Broker directly. Norus - or any minor crime boss on any planet - should not have this kind of information. A new relay, a route to a new part of the galaxy, could change the balance of political power, economic power, or even military power by an order of magnitude. I would trust fewer than three of the major galactic governments, as a matter of fact. And certainly not the Council."

Mosh blinked. It was unnerving how casually this woman spoke about gigantic forces.

"So, what, it should stay hidden forever? Maintain the balance? Oh crap, am I going to be killed for seeing the faces of two Broker agents?"

"**_YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT THE CURRENT BALANCE OF POWER IN THE GALAXY, MR. ANDRIN._**"

Kyral laughed his rough, grim-sounding laugh.

"**_I AM PREPARED TO OFFER YOU AN ALTERNATIVE: JOIN MY ORGANIZATION. TAKE MY PEOPLE TO THE LOCATION YOURSELF. SEE WHAT WE CAN LEARN ABOUT IT._**"

Mosh went to his desk, and from a compartment beneath he pulled out a rugged-looking satchel. "You already know what I'm going to say. Tell me this, though: is there really a Pillars of Wrath ship on the way?"

"**_YES. BUT THEIR INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT PART OF THE CITY THEY SHOULD SCAN FIRST IS PERHAPS NOT FULLY ACCURATE._**"

"Pretty sure they're heading to an unused old mining camp first, actually," said Kyral. "Don't worry about them. The Broker dislikes collateral damage. We can persuade them to leave the city. As soon as we're off-world, we'll make sure they know you've slipped away. Got any guns or cash needs to be carried?"

Mosh shook his head... then went to a wall panel, and brought out a metal box. He opened it and held up a compact submachine gun to the ceiling a moment, checking it then powering it back down to safe mode. They heard an explosion outside, close by.

"We should go," said Mosh. He put the gun into his bag.

Em was looking at him.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said. "Just that it's good that you accepted the Broker's offer. This way, I will not have to kill you."

Mosh felt a shiver down his spine. He had no idea of this woman's intentions.

The corner of her mouth crooked upward.

"That was a joke," she said.


	5. Chapter 5: Diplomacy

_**Interlude**_

The fog lifts. He can feel that he is in a bed. The sheets are cool, and yet so perfectly warm. He exhales, then unthinkingly mumbles a few words, testing his voice as he returns to his sense of himself. He is coming back to consciousness like a swimmer about to break the surface. He savors the sensation.

So many times, he had somewhere he had to be, something that had to be fought, it was so seldom he could sleep until he felt rested. Now, he feels as though he has been asleep forever...

He moves his body. Through his eyelids the room is bright, and light seems to be coming from everywhere.

His body. Something about that doesn't seem right-

He remembers. Arcs of blue electricity everywhere. Searing his skin, threading through his nerves and sinews, turning his bones to brittle ash. He was standing at a console, holding tight to two contacts to force the circuit to complete through him, so he could replace the programming, so the Reapers would listen-

And Jay Shepard's eyes are open.

He doesn't think; he acts. He is standing upright, the floor is solid and cool beneath his feet, the coverings are up and over and already settling back down on the bed. The only sounds are the fabric of the comforter like a flag in the wind, and his own measured breathing. Calm. Controlled. He looks around with the eyes of a sniper.

White room. No windows. High ceiling. Ceiling fan. Flowers. Chairs, sofa, table. Door.

He no sooner steps toward the door than he sees it open, and he stops when he sees what comes through into the room.

Carrying a tray, upon which is toast and coffee, there is a geth platform. Humanoid, bipedal, made of coils of fibrous metallic materials and glowing conduits. This one has a familiar gap in the torso, a familiar flaring of the petal-shaped articular surfaces that surround the machine's central eye.

"Shepard-Commander. Good morning," says the geth.

"Legion," says Shepard. "You're... dead."

He remembers everything now. The geth had been his teammate, his asset, his friend. And on Rannoch, at the end of the quarians' war with the geth, Legion had disseminated the 1,183 programs that constituted its identity throughout the geth network. He had been able to bring a sort of freedom to his people... much as Shepard had let himself be digitized and copied and broadcast when he, too, died.

The geth tilts its eye-stalk and answers simply. "I was," it says, and crosses to a small table, where it sets down the tray. "Thank you for making it otherwise."

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER FIVE: DIPLOMACY<strong>

_The Citadel_

_Sol System_

The Raloi Emissary clucked his tongue as he continued up the many sets of steps leading to the Council chamber. His shoulder blades twitched as he stepped, and the feathers of his upper arms glistened in the light, a wave of irredescence moving rhythmically outward toward his hands.

"Calmly," said the senior advisor. "Just another meeting."

The emissary's head rocked back slightly atop his long neck. "That's exactly what I'm worried about, Ke'uss. Just another pointless show, another fruitless trip up a sideways tree." He exhaled, making a long, low exasperated noise that sounded convincingly turian. Enough time in the diplomatic corps, and it seemed members of every species inherited the ability to make that sound.

One of the junior advisors, walking behind and below them, made a trilling noise, far back in her throat. No one spoke for a moment as the delegation mounted yet another set of a dozen stairs. The emissary looked over his shoulder at the young female. She was attractive, her feathers a muted blue-grey with dusky brown mottling. Her garments hung well on a strong solid frame. Her head bobbed slightly as she walked up the stairs, which were just slightly too close together to be comfortable for Raloi legs. Her eyes revealed calm intelligence. This was why he had asked her to attend this meeting; capable young Raloi needed to be included, even females, and the Council needed to see it happen.

"What's on your mind, young one?" said the emissary, trying to sound collegial and warm.

She blinked and swiveled her head his way. "Oh. Nothing, Emissary, I'm sure-"

"Nonsense," said the leader. "All observations are welcome, and this is your first time in the Council spire, isn't it? Please, share what you see."

She made the trilling noise again, unconsciously, and tried not to sound nervous as she said "the sideways tree. I'm sure this isn't news to you, sir, but I was just thinking that the way the Tower juts out from the center of the Presidium ring, it doesn't really rise up, compared to the Presidium, at least. Or the wards either, really. In terms of the axis of the station itself, it really is... sideways. Isn't it?"

The Emissary made the frustrated diplomat sound again.

The young attaché hurriedly added, "so just like in the old story, it could be that no matter how far we climb, we aren't actually closer to the sky here... is all I was thinking."

The older advisor, Ke'uss, bobbed his head in a soothing gesture. "Indeed, Kar'ia, the thought has occurred once or twice. But you show promise, to think of it so soon."

The young female bowed her head. "It's not a helpful thought. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything."

"No," said the Emissary. "I shouldn't have insisted."

The group started up the final set of steps. The Emissary was still glad to have put Kar'ia in the delegation, but he would not ask her to speak now.

Over a hundred years ago, it had been a shock for their people to learn there were not just intelligent beings in the galaxy, but several advanced species, all far more technologically advanced, all connected in a galaxy-spanning civilization. It had been far worse for the Raloi to learn all at once the many ways in which they were suddenly inadequate, uncivilized, and primitive.

Their persistent and deep divisions between males and females were sexist, they were informed. A quality of ancient civilizations. Something to be left behind when a society reaches a certain level of science and technology. That they had retained this quality was a source of concern, a sign of immaturity.

But the Emissary saw things differently. They had sent a female as the head of their first delegation to the Citadel, after all, and look what had happened. Misunderstanding. Contagion. The impossible choice between preparing for the Reapers or pretending that first contact with aliens had never happened. The darkest period in his people's entire history.

And now, despite his better judgement, he had finally relented to Ke'uss and the others and brought a female to the Council, and she had ruined his mood before they reached the dias. He wondered, what was so advanced about that?

At the top of the stairs, two turian guards in glistening blue armor stood at parade rest. They snapped to attention as the Emissary's head came level with the landing.

Beyond them, the curve of the Earth was visible through breathtakingly large windows, the gentle arc of the planet tracing a graceful curve from lower-left up and across the middle of the view. Clouds swirled and seas sparkled; from here, the place looked beautiful. It had a way of making people miss their homes, even if they looked nothing like this blue-green jewel.

Standing in a row, with the Earth as their backdrop and a ten-meter gulf of empty space opening to the arboretum below, the five Councilors sat or stood behind podiums, ready to receive the delegation. Without a word out loud, the elder and younger advisors fanned out to the Emissary's left and right, with the other assorted members of the entourage filling in the gaps. As one, they extended their arms, and bowed.

In the center of the row of Councilors, a dark-haired human woman returned a version of the bow. Her voice was as clear as if she were standing with them, thanks to concealed acoustic modulators. "The Raloi delegation honors us with their custom and respect. We strive as always to earn it."

To the human's right, the turian Councilor tilted his head very slightly; to her left, his salarian counterpart shut down her Omni and folded her hands in front of her. The quarian Councilor was on the salarian's left; he nodded once, then leaned back against a chair with its seat at waist level, adopting a listening posture.

The new krogan Councilor, seated far opposite the quarian, spoke next.

"So it's true," he rumbled, his low voice carrying effortlessly across the chamber. "They return every season without fail. Probably shouldn't be a surprise."

The salarian Councilor made a disapproving noise that was almost a hiss; the human Councilor sighed. The turian Councilor twitched his mandibles and addressed the delegation.

"Our newest member has been with us only a few weeks. The latest krogan Councilor means to say that he has been looking forward to meeting you, Ambassador."

"Yes," growled the krogan, "he has. And he wants to say he has been impressed by the tenacity and dedication of the Raloi diplomatic corps, petitioning without fail for decades, despite a lack of progress that would drive most beings to frustration, or maybe even violence. He can also speak for himself, Calimus, as much as your help is appreciated."

At this, the turian Councilor's mandibles flattened against his cheeks in a turian frown, but he said nothing.

The elder Raloi advisor looked to the Emissary, who nodded. The advisor said, "The esteemed Councilor Gatatog Okrent is also, I think, engaging in a little verbal provocation, as is the traditional krogan way, as a means to get to know our delegation."

The krogan laughed out loud, his sharp teeth flashing white. "Maybe he is, at that." He inclined his great crested head in a surprisingly graceful copy of the timing and motion of the Ralois' bow.

The Emissary clucked approvingly, and said "if the Councilor wishes to learn more about us, he would be very welcome to visit our embassy at any time. It is unfortunately rather small, and lacks for certain amenities, but we would be pleased to host a small reception."

The krogan laughed again. "See, Calimus? I told you they would loosen up with some new blood on the Council." In response, the turian growled noncommitally.

The salarian Councilor sniffed, her wide mouth shaped into a slit with downward-slanting edges. "Yes, yes," she said. "It is fascinating to observe this clash of diplomatic styles between two predator species, but if we might get down to today's business?"

The Emissary's back straightened, and his head tilted back a little, but he said nothing. The krogan gave a low rumbling "hmmm," then said "So you weren't kidding about how these meetings go."

The human Councilor, a tall thin woman with olive skin and dark eyes, shook her head. "No, Councilor Hallen has been quite clear. She sees these appeals as a waste of time."

"Because they are!" said the salarian. "And I notice that since the delegation arrived, we all seem to be speaking for one another. I can't think of better proof that these entreaties have become a rote exercise. Ambassador, please forgive me being so direct, but do you have anything new for us today? Or is this another in the long series of identical appeals for greater recognition and political involvement for your government? I have a feeling you must be as frustrated as any of us."

The Emissary warbled a sharp, short laugh. "Councilors, the Raloi are perhaps as frustrated as anyone standing before you has ever been. From our point of view, all we are asking for is-"

The quarian Councilor spoke up. "Excuse me. If the Raloi Ambassador thinks this is as frustrating as the Council gets, then I'd question his knowledge of history. It wasn't so long ago my people desired only to be able to stand where you are now, sir."

"Yes, understood," said the Emissary. "And the treatment the quarian people received from the Council of that time was shameful."

"You think so?" asked the quarian Councilor, standing up straight and taking half a step forward, to lean on his podium. "My forebears unleashed the geth on the galaxy. They created a fully-aware artificial intelligence at a time when AI were contravened by Council law. Their fear and ignorance ignited a desperate war that lasted 300 years, and they made our people _outcasts_. That was not the Council's doing, and it was not the Council's problem to solve."

The Emissary's feathers ruffled slightly. More quietly, he said "perhaps not. But the Raloi are not coming to you with a problem, asking you to solve it. We merely request that we be given the opportunity of a greater level of participation, some measure of additional support..." His arms drifted out wide as he spoke. "...We merely want to be more a part of the galactic community."

The quarian regarded the raloi for a moment. "I believe you are sincere, sir. I also believe you are misguided. The lessons your people need to learn are out among the stars, I think, not in the chambers of diplomacy." He touched a control on his podium, and leaned once more against the chair at his back.

The salarian Councilor stepped up to her own podium, and blinked her great black eyes at the Raloi delegation. As her elongated fingers hovered over the controls, she said "It sounds to me as though you do have a problem, Ambassador. A problem of perception, and of reputation. And you are asking the Council to help you solve it. I agree with my colleague that you aren't dissembling, so that means you are unaware of the irony of saying you only want to help. From the galaxy's point of view, you have done enough." She touched a control.

At this, the human Councilor shot the salarian a look. "Hallen, I believe we had agreed not to make references to the Plague. That ground has been well covered in previous meetings."

Both the turian Councilor and the Emissary made the same low sound of frustration. There was a long, tense silence. It was finally broken by the sound of the krogan Councilor laughing quietly.

"Calimus... you owe me a hundred credits."

Ke'uss stepped forward, to the Emissary's side. "Let's move past that, if we may. I believe it's universally accepted that the 2185 avian flu outbreak shortly after Council delegates came to Turvess was accidental, and likely unforseeable. The few cases among Council races after our diplomats came to the Citadel were not even recognized as the same illness for decades."

"That's true," said the human Councilor, looking one by one to her cohorts and receiving nods and shrugs in response; no one wanted to talk about this again. Ke'uss continued.

"...And it's universally accepted that when the virus re-emerged after the War, the Raloi of course had no way to know it had happened. If we had..." He trailed off, his talons tracing little loop shapes in the air, the feathers of his arm rippling slightly in the light.

"Well, that's the problem, isn't it?" growled Councilor Okrent. "Through no fault of your own, your people screwed the rest of us over, twice. And the second time, you had removed yourselves from the scene so completely we didn't even have anyone to yell at. I'm not counting the first flu as one of those times, by the way; that's just a risk of first contact, and anyway it was mostly your people getting sick. Nobody's fault. But your retreat would have been bad enough. I remember the quarians from two wars ago, and the Councilor is right - you're standing here. You have an embassy. You're doing fine."

The Emissary stood mute, his beak half-open in surprise. Ke'uss cleared his throat. "If I may... we do have an embassy, Councilor, and as the Emissary said, you would be most welcome to pay us a visit. But sir, we have had that embassy for less than 50 years, we have not made any gains since then, and it needed almost 50 years of petitioning to get us that much. We cannot help but feel... what's the word... stagnated."

The human Councilor spoke up. "I sympathize, Emissary, Minister. My people also have relatively short lifespans, and our culture - well, our half-dozen or so most dominant cultures - all share a strongly individualistic streak." She wore a slight smirk at that. "The time scale on which the Council tends to move is perhaps not one our peoples can ever be very comfortable with."

"Oh, don't coddle them, Wen," said the salarian Councilor. "My people live less than half as long as yours, and compared to the krogan or the asari we may as well be insects that live for a month. We do well enough by Council time; we have learned how to."

"Yes, Hallen, but you also co-founded the Council. If your people weren't adept at long-term stategy, 'Council time' would mean something else."

The salarian councilor sighed, and sat back on her chair. Councilor Wen turned back to the Raloi.

"And that brings us to the asari. I take it that your request is, as always, to be granted sanction of an alliance with the asari as a client race?"

The Emissary nodded, his head bobbing. "Yes. We don't expect a seat on the council quite yet."

He hoped his frustration didn't interfere with the delivery of his little joke. It was intended as a self-depricating jab at the idea that the Raloi were somehow asking for too much... the human woman was _said_ to appreciate humor... but then Councilor Wen raised an eyebrow and he realized his mistake.

"Ah-eh," he said, "that is to say, we are not so impatient as to ask for that. The human Council seat was, er, a special case I'm sure."

"Ha!" laughed Okrent. "And I thought I was going to hate this meeting."

"No offense taken, Emissary," said Wen. "But the absence of the asari ambassador is, of course, relevant." Her voice remained calm and her manner placid, but it was clearly a challenge, and a judgement.

At this, the Emissary clicked the talons of his hands together. He was getting desperate...

"Ka'ira," he said, gesturing to the young female, "would you care to try? We old birds don't seem to be making our case well today."

He was going to fail today, he knew, but he was still a politician.

Ka'ira paused, took a breath, and strode forward to stand between Ke'uss and the Emissary. The trilling sound did not escape her throat this time.

"Councilors. I will be direct. If you like, we would be glad to enumerate the ways in which we feel we can contribute to the galactic community on a higher level in the future. But we need to be taken seriously, and we need to be legitimized. Embraced by the diplomatic side of Council space. All we ask is to be a recognized client race to the asari, as the volus are to the turians or the geth are to the quarians."

Councilor Wen had touched the controls at her podium, and she now stood with her hands folded in front of her body.

Okrent recognized the silence as his cue.

"Well then, let me go ahead and be the one to say it, since my more experienced colleagues seem to be avoiding it: you need to take that up with your friends the asari. Surely they can offer some perspective on being judged in the court of public opinion, and how to deal with it. Thank you for being direct."

He ambled forward and touched his own control panel. Next to him, Calimus was doing the same. Okrent continued.

"And if we're talking about life-spans, it sounds to me like your problem is you don't live long enough to handle this problem in the way your mentors would. That means you need to figure out the Raloi way, or get them to share some secrets. Say what you like about the asari, they understand politics on a whole different level. And if the asari ambassador might wish to join you the next time you visit, I'd love to ask her some questions of my own. We done here?" He looked down the row at his co-Councilors. "It appears we're done."

The lighting in the Council chamber shifted slightly, the Councilors' area dimming just enough to be symbolic. They suddenly seemed very far away. The lights on the petitioners' stage brightened slightly, as well, and Ka'ira realized the walkway back to the stairs had been dimmed before, because now it was once again well-lit. They were clearly being ushered back the way they had come. The Emissary and Ke'uss were already walking toward the stairs down.

The acoustics had been re-calibrated as well, so while she could see the Councilors milling about and chatting as they moved toward the rear of the chamber, she could only hear the low rumble of Okrent.

"Hey, Wen. Where's a good human food place around here? I suddenly feel like a big plate of wings."

Ka'ira sighed, the trilling sound loud and clear at the back of her throat. She walked briskly, to catch up to the others.

As she rejoined the cluster of diplomats, Ke'uss was saying "the leadership back home isn't surprised, but they are getting disheartened." The Emissary was nodding and making sounds of agreement and contemplation.

"Sing loud enough and long enough," the Emissary said, "and the right ears should hear."

"Yes," said Ke'uss, "if it's the right song."

The Emissary clucked his tongue. "Ke'uss, if we've learned anything in 100 years, it's that this galaxy is not the world we came from. Sometimes I wonder if we should ever have left Turvess."

Ka'ira was shocked. How could the Emissary say such a thing?

"And that's a question the leadership feels we really can't afford to ask," said Ke'uss. "I'm afraid sometimes the salarian and quarian might be right. We keep coming back, and for what? Why would we expect them to they say no a hundred times and then say yes? Why should they? She's right," he said, looking at Ka'ira, "this might be the sideways tree. Just a branch, and the sky is the other direction."

The Emissary huffed, "All we can do is keep trying."

"And putting our best people out there," said Ka'ira. "In commerce, in the arts, and individually. We can't just become more accepted by decree. Our people need to interact with other beings one-on-one, in meaningful exchanges. Show them the worth of the Raloi people."

The Emissary just looked at her, then kept walking. Ke'uss caught her eye and made a reassuring trilling noise.

* * *

><p><em>Omega<em>

"And **that** is the worth of the Raloi people, you grub-rotted bastards!"

A Raloi female was leaning back onto a bar, and carefully - very carefully, as one does when one is drunk - keeping her boot on the neck of a human who was groaning on the floor. An unconscious salarian was draped over an upended table nearby. Two turians were making for the exit.

"Yeah, run!" she said, holding the back of a hand up to her beak and squawking in pain when she touched it. A drop of blood fell to the floor. She regarded the human near where it had landed. "And what about you, buddy?"

The man squirmed. "I - uhh! - I will never use the word 'ostrich' again, I swear."

She lifted her boot, and towered over him. "No, dumbass. ...But thank you. ...No, I mean, do you feel like running?"

He scrambled to all fours, then up on his feet. "Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!"

She called after him, "goddammit! The _males_ are the bright-colored ones!" but he was gone. She rolled a barstool out from against the bar, and as she sat she tried to see her beak in the mirror behind the rows of bottles. "Anthropocentric bag of... fucking ow."

A quarian strode into the bar, brushing past the salarian, and took a seat.

"Hey, Lu'ka. I got the alert," he said, "then took my time coming to rescue you, as requested."

"Thank you," said the Raloi, signaling to the bartender. "You deserve a drink."

The quarian shook his head. "Nope, there's not much here I can drink, and what's here is... _here_, so no thanks. I just wanted to make sure you weren't dead."

"Your concern is touching, Draun. Is it you or the Shadow Broker who's so worried about my health?"

"Why can't it be both?" said the quarian. His eyes shone dimly in his pale grey face. "Oh wow, you're going to need some cement for that."

"Shit, really?"

She tried to get a better look in the mirror, but the salarian bartender blocked her view. He had a pistol in his hand.

"Here's your gun," he was saying, "safe and sound as promised - but considering the damages, maybe I should just keep it."

"Oh, _Keelah_, don't say that," said Draun. "She'll kick your ass, too."

"Now, now," said Lu'ka. "No need to threaten the man, he's been very kind about not shooting me yet. Also he has no way of knowing the extreme _sentimental_ value of that sidearm. Here," she said, activating her Omni. "Sorry about the mess."

The bartender glanced at his own Omni, nodded, and handed over the gun. Lu'ka holstered it. The bartender's forehead wrinkled, and he frowned.

"Hey, there was just the one, right?" said the bartender.

"That's right," said Draun, pushing back from the bar and standing. Without a thought, Lu'ka followed suit. Under his breath, Draun said "Don't make her tell the story-"

"Why do you ask?" said Lu'ka, swaying gently in place but fixing the bartender with a piercing stare.

"You have an empty holster on the other hip," said the bartender.

"Okay thanks, we're good to go, have to go, now," said Draun, pushing Lu'ka ahead of him, steering her by the shoulders.

"Because of a thieeeeeeeeeef!" she trilled, as they went out to the streets of Omega.

Author Note: a chapter that's almost entirely people standing around and talking on the Citadel? NOW this is a Mass Effect story! (Also, have some post-bar-fight sassy drunk Raloi to give you a small taste of Chapter 6. Thanks for reading.)


End file.
